how it sings

It is such a shame that BBC Proms is rarely broadcasted in this country in recent years. My local PBS station used to many years ago. It now penders to the mass appeal with most of the performances.

Symphony Cast also was once a regular programming in my local classical station but that ended years ago. While I can listen to Symphony Cast on one of my computer it just has too many pain points to do so. A few days ago I ran out of any I care to read at all the sites in my regular bookmark I visited Symphony Cast, and to my delight Alison Young has been covering 2017's BBC Proms. She is one of my favorite classical music host.

Of the three episodes of the BBC Proms covered as of the time of this post, I like the one on Aug 7 the most featuring violinist Nicola Benedetti. She delivered the most impeccable performance on Shostakovich's pieces with her Stradivari violin in Hour 1 of this episode. To my untrained ears and mind there is something so specially and unique about the sound of a Stradivari that tugs at one's heart. I love most of Shostakovich's work and have so far not grew tired of them. It evokes one's emotions more than even the best of singers. I especially like the short piece she performed for the encore. It is foreign to me and I would like to know what it is. It sounds Irish, and may even be a bit American.

I normally do not like write post and link to performances that has a shelf life, but this is so exceptional.

Update 17.08.17: The mystery encore piece Nicola Benedetti performed at the end is a song based on an old Scot poem "Auld Lang Syne", arranged by Petr Limonov. The sad part is when I googled "Petr Limonov's arrangement of Auld Lang Syne" there was 316 hits. No wonder the world is going down into the toilet pronto. Go Trump go - NOT. Let's hope the German election would reverse the self-destruct trend for humanity, all lives, and this planet.

Strangely the three samples on Wikipedia are the tunes that I am very familiar with. The arrangement by Petr Limonov is so different and it tugs at my heart like none other. I did a bit more search and found this youtube video. I hope it will last for all to enjoy. Sublime!




and she performs Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Glück, das mir verblieb"